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THE ORACLE WOULD LIKE TO YOU TO READ HER MIND #NVRMNDUS

Julia Sinelnikova an installation artist, and also performance artist event organizer, and future curator/gallery director based out of Brooklyn, New York has been making more than just waves. She is making incredibly illuminating sculptures, that float in the air and resemble an arachnid sort of fairy creatures webbing. They are simply awesome to witness in person, and I recommend you visit one if not all of her exhibitions in the next couple of months.

Also known as none other than the Oracle, a name originating with her accomplices in the Vectorian government at NYC’s Vector Gallery. She can read your fortune, future, and has a foresight of her own about whats hot in terms of local events, DJ’s and performances. She is another one of NYC’s “IT” kids and has been working directly with curators of the NYC Rave Scene. Implementing her Installation skills in to a night club environment. Which is definitely a fresher take on going out; for a drink, or to dance, when you can experience such wonderful and intriguing pieces of art, you should really ask her about her next exhibition yourselves, I hear a ton of great happenings go on over the next few months!

CC: Julia Sinelnikova

NN: You have been a very strong counter part in the eyes of someone being involved in the goings-ons at Vector Gallery; tell me as the Oracle, what is it that you do at Vector?

The Oracle: I met JJ Brine days before we presented the very first public Vector Gallery event, and on that night he named me “The Oracle.” I had recently begun creating multi-sensory sculptural installations, and for reasons both spiritual and symbolic to my work the title fit perfectly, as if revealing another self within me. Since the summer of 2013, I have worked directly with JJ to present numerous visual art exhibitions, performances, and photo stories, with recent projects including an invitational show at SELECT Fair during Miami Art Basel 2014.

While I find a home in Vector due to my aesthetic affinities with spiritual and light-focused art, perhaps my greatest work with JJ Brine has been an ongoing dialogue of interactions, performances, online exchanges, and telepathic signals. We have developed growth within each other while we ourselves have transformed during the non-linear existence of Vector. We both source a great deal of creative power from interpersonal relationships with others, and given our mutual respect for deep, emotional communication, it is the basis of our artistic/spiritual relationship.

NN: How does that tie into your work as an Installation artist?

The Oracle: For me Vector is an outlet for myself as a channeler, sorceress, and performer. My installation practice has long been rooted in the otherworldly, with a focus on transparency and immersive elements. JJ Brine and I share a fascination with certain construction methods, and often share notes on materials that inform our related, but unique, processes. As an artist focusing on light, working to illuminate the cyber Faerie realm, Vector is a natural home for my numerous identities, a space where non-binary thinking, the spiritual, and multi-sensory interaction are the framework.

CC: Julia Sinelnikova

NN: You had a collaborative piece in the Miami Art Basel, 2014. Was the first time you had featured work?

The Oracle: In fact, I co-curated and presented artwork at the second public exhibition at Vector in 2013, entitled The Timeless Event. I installed immersive hand cut Mylar arrangements alongside JJ’s Shrines and worked alongside artist Christa Brunks to create the overall aesthetic for this show. My artwork has been included in a number of other exhibitions at the space, including Mirrorspace and Time Doesn’t Move, an exhibition honoring Nico’s death.

As the featured visual artist at Vector’s Miami Art Basel 2014 exhibition, LEMNIVERSE, I contributed a number of glowing “Fairy Organ” installations and holographic resin collages, alongside a host of handmade costumes. The magnitude of this project, in which Vector was sponsored by SELECT Fair to mount a large scale installation in our unique aesthetic, made it so that JJ, Lena Marquise (the featured performing artist) and I had to work closely and around the clock, especially once the project gained major media attention from the likes of ArtNews and Billboard. It was a resounding success, but not without blood, sweat, tears.

NN: What was your reaction to Usher, charging his phone out of your ‘sisters’ crotch?

The Oracle: It was absolutely inevitable that Usher himself would feel the need to involve himself in the CHARGING station. This is proven only further by how perfectly his interaction completes the concept of Lena Marquise’s performance piece, entitled “Body as Commodity.”

NN: If it were any other musical artist who would you chosen for her?

The Oracle: I think it would be quite ideal if Miley Cyrus or Bashar al-Assad could snag a charge from Ms. Marquise.

CC:Amy Lombard

NN: You seem to be so incredibly busy at times, can you describe to me in detail – what your individual process’ are like, in terms of your installation pieces?

The Oracle: Custom sculptural installations, video art, lighting and costume design are prominent aspects of my artistic process. I work in long-term series, often feeding elements of my work back into itself in a recursive manner. I have developed new techniques for sculpting with resin and plastics, which I am constantly perfecting.

Transparency and light are key elements in my sculptural work. I take photos and record video of light effects in nature both in New York and during my extensive travels, remixing the imagery and using transparent printouts as the basis for my hand cut patterns. My “Fairy Organs” series is born of my fascination with fragmented communication and constructed identity. These sculptures are comprised of intricately cut plastics and holographic materials, referencing the infinite, fragmented nature of modern modes of communication. In the modern day, we are free to create a fabricated identity through our online persona and extreme body modifications. I invoke these notions through the sinister magic of the Faeries.

Due to the meditative and experimental nature of my practice, travel, residencies, and collaboration are essential to its production. I am inspired by the international DIY art community, and have spent a great deal of time in Barcelona, an enchanted city brimming with both traditional and technological art. In spring of 2014 I spent two months in Northern Finland, working alone in a cabin on the edge of a frozen lake. This time surrounded by a pastel-hued, crystalline landscape in silence proved pivotal for me, allowing me the chance to work across sculpture, performance and video fluidly in my studio and in the serene Finnish woodlands.

NN: You are always working on a functional line of jewelry, I have seen some prototypes, I quite enjoy them to be frank, when can we be expecting a consumer release?

The Oracle: I am currently relaunching my jewelry and accessories line, OracleWares. The newest pieces feature iridescent crystal prisms, and I plan to incorporate more natural healing stones. While I never thought I would go into fashion, making my own costumes to suit my identity has become an integral to my artistic process. I realized that there’s something empowering about being able to wear a work of art, and am inspired by artist jewelry by the likes of Dali and Man Ray. You can expect the online shop to launch back up in May of 2015, featuring a line of crystal necklaces, headgear, and garments.

NN: As well as accessories such as headdress, we will be seeing more items like this put onto their respectable market place?

The Oracle: I have been creating sculptural, holographic headdresses to wear as “The Oracle” for several years now, and have refined my hand cut technique to create a durable, avant-garde prototype. I have been commissioned to create these for fashion photo shoots and the like, and would like to create more custom pieces. However, the nature of these pieces is that they are built into my ongoing performance piece and are very whimsical. As an artist, I prefer to focus on my conceptual practice, and so when I do take the time to create custom fashion accessories and props, it is usually for a special situation, where someone or something transcendental is involved…

CC: Laura Weyl

NN: You were working on a video project that times we spoke, shot by a certain DJ, I hear very good things about, care to share anymore on that subject?

The Oracle: I have been working on a number of performance videos throughout the year, both in Finland and New York. My most recent piece includes footage of myself as The Oracle, layered over imagery of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars, created for projection mapping at a space-themed event in Bushwick. It is only natural for me to create video art pieces out of footage of my kinetic sculptures and costumes, revealing their movement and bringing out their multisensory qualities. My work is about interaction, rather than the object.

CC: Julia Sinelnikova

NN: You have been all over NYC this past handful of months, NYE installations, Installations at #POWERED curated by Issa Israel, Club Austerity, and just this past weekend at #GOODROOMBK, If I missed anything please tell me, but how do you do it ?!

The Oracle: I go through intense phases of public work framed by periods of meditation, introspection, and travel. The New York scene has been brimming with life this winter, and I have been riding a new wave of support for multidisciplinary, interactive art. It is very creatively and emotionally draining to be constantly exhibiting, so I find myself needing to pull back to formulate new ideas and installation techniques. I recommend that to all artists: ride the wave when it comes, but withdraw into yourself the moment you need it.

I am currently developing the framework for a series of videos and performance pieces. I also plan to delve into holography this year to expand my light-based practice. My next upcoming project will be a large-scale sculptural contribution to the “Enchanted Forest” installation slated to take place at Pace University on April 20th, led by Bushwick-based artists Diego Montoya and Cheno Pinter.

NN: Tell me more about your education, where did you go to school, what lead you to become the artist you are today?

The Oracle: I have been creating elaborate imaginary worlds in my mind since I began to have memories. I realized I wanted to pursue visual art seriously around age fourteen, due to my obsession with materials and passion for working with my hands. I have been exhibiting my work and organizing art collectives since around that age. I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for my degree, where I studied visual art with a focus on sculpture. I believe my work with community based art collectives, traveling, and living in Brooklyn has shaped my practice and perspective more than my formal education.

CC: Michael Fromm

NN: Since then, you have traveled the world, staying in residencies and flowered very strongly and beautifully in to a powerhouse of hyper colored, surrealist art and hybrid atmospheres… what are you wanting to convey to your audiences through your mesmerizing art work?

The Oracle: I am calling my audience to reach within themselves for an emotional intelligence with which they can process the intensity of the modern technological world, and participate in it positively and creatively. This process can be painful, and visceral, and I have no interest in denying that. I am creating ethereal spaces for my audience to drift into their own dream world, but these spaces are not without surprises and extreme psychic energy that can be hard to understand – it is seen as alien. Multisensory interaction is as much God as is perspective. We live in an infinite loop, but everything is always changing. By immersing my audience in the otherworldly, I hope to free their attention towards this notion, that interconnectivity is a state of existence beyond the immediate self, and even the observable world.

Thanks Julia, its truly an honor to have you on #NVRBLOG, and I appreciate your time with us, #NVRMNDCRU. #NVRMNDKIDS be sure to take a look at this particular EP of @TMZ where you will find some interesting facts about USHER, Lena Marquise, JJ Brine, Vector Gallery, and of course the lovely Oracle. For more from the Julia Sinelnikova, check her up-to-date online HUB, here.